Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
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Investigaciones Geográficas
ISSN: 0213 - 4691. eISSN: 1989 - 9890. Interuniversity Institute of Geography
DOI: 10.14198/INGEO.18421 University of Alicante
To cite this article: Carella, M., & Léger, J.-F. (2021). Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional
differences. Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. https://doi.org/10.14198/INGEO.18421
Downgrading among higher education graduates
in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
La sobreeducación de los graduados universitarios en Italia y Francia:
explorando las diferencias regionales
Maria Carella1*
Jean-François Léger2
Abstract
In France and Italy – like all the countries of the European Union – the proportion of higher education
graduates in the working population has continued to increase. At the same time, the number of jobs
requiring this level of education has not grown as quickly. In France and Italy, this has meant a decrease
in the proportion of tertiary graduates who occupy managerial positions, and a growing share of these
graduates hold jobs as middle and low ranking employees.
Several studies have investigated the phenomenon of professional downgrading, focusing on its
structural determinants and socio-economic implications at the national level and examining international
differences. Nevertheless, only a few studies explore disparities in over-education and compare nations
at the regional level.
By addressing the need for a spatial approach to this subject, which is so far lacking in the scientific
literature, this paper examines the downgrading of higher education graduates in Italy and France at the
regional level and discusses the real occupational returns for high levels of education. Using data from the
Italian and French censuses, the findings of this analysis show significant sub-regional heterogeneities
regarding access to managerial positions for graduates according to the territorial unit observed.
Keywords: over-education; higher education graduates; access to managerial positions; regional
inequalities; France; Italy.
Resumen
En Francia e Italia, como en el resto de los países de la Unión Europea, la proporción de los gradua-
dos universitarios sigue aumentando en la población activa. Al mismo tiempo, los trabajos que requie-
ren este nivel educativo no están creciendo tan rápidamente. En Francia e Italia, esto se traduce en una
disminución de la proporción de titulados superiores que ocupan cargos directivos, y en un aumento
de la proporción de los que ocupan puestos de trabajo como obreros o empleados de categoría media o
baja. Varias aportaciones han analizado el fenómeno de la sobreeducación, centrándose en sus determi-
nantes estructurales y en las consecuencias socioeconómicas a nivel de país y examinando también las
diferencias entre países. Sin embargo, solo algunos de ellos han intentado explorar las disparidades en la
sobreeducación comparando los países a nivel regional. Abordando la necesidad de un enfoque espacial/
territorial de este tema, que hasta ahora falta en la literatura científica, en este artículo se examina la des-
valorización de los graduados universitarios en Italia y Francia, a una escala regional, y se examinan los
verdaderos beneficios profesionales de la obtención de un título de educación superior. Utilizando datos
de los censos italiano y francés, los resultados de este análisis muestran importantes heterogeneidades
interregionales en el acceso a puestos directivos para los titulados superiores.
Palabras clave: sobreeducación; graduados universitarios; acceso a puestos directivos; disparidades
regionales; Francia; Italia.
1 Department of Political Sciences, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy. maria.carella1@uniba.it. * Corresponding author
2 Demography Institute (IDUP), University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, France. jfleger@univ-paris1.fr
Received: 12/16/2020. Accepted: 05/05/2021. Published in press: 09/13/2020.
This work is published under a license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© Maria Carella, Jean-François Léger
Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
1. Introduction
For at least thirty years, in many Western countries, ‘the professional integration of young people in
access to employment has been characterized by an increasing downgrading’ (Chabault, 2008, p. 185).
This phenomenon, also known as over-education, refers to individuals whose education exceeds those
required for the job they occupy (Green, McIntosh & Vignoles, 2000; McGuinness, 2006). Long spared
from professional downgrading, higher education graduates are increasingly confronted with it, especial-
ly since the proportion of young people entering higher education has grown significantly. Indeed, the
median value of the percentage of tertiary-level graduates aged 30 to 34 has risen from 22% in 1993 to
46% in 2018 in EU-15 area countries (Eurostat, 2019).3
In Europe, studies on over-education were more widespread in the 1990s, when a significant increase
in the educational level of the population produced an excess in the educated labour supply. Over time
the literature on this topic has been significantly enriched (see Chabault, 2008 for a review), and interest
in higher education graduates has even been seen in seminal contributions (Gautié & Nauze-Fichet,
2000; Doazan & Eckert, 2014).
Nowadays, the debate on the risk of professional downgrading remains current and open; nonetheless,
most studies either focus exclusively on the determinants of country-level education-work mismatch or
tend to assess the effects produced on earnings, productivity, career mobility and job satisfaction (Brynin,
2002; Lemistre, 2014) or on specific sectors of activity, such as public service (Moullet, Véro & di Paola,
2005). To date, cross-national studies based on a spatial approach to this phenomenon are even scarcer
and usually limited in identifying convergences and/or differences in the factors driving over-education
across countries (Verhaest & van der Velden, 2013; Budría & Moro-Egido, 2018).
This paper aims to add to the existing literature by conducting a comparative analysis of professional
downgrading in France and Italy at an infra-national level. The decision to analyse this phenomenon in
France and Italy is based on two factors. Firstly, more recent downgrading of higher education graduates
has been substantially shaped by the second education explosion in the 1990s, namely, by the expansion
of access to higher education and an increase in the number of tertiary graduates. In this regard, in the
European context, France and Italy take up peculiar positions: France because its pathway almost per-
fectly matches the average of European countries, and Italy because it is the country where this second
education explosion occurred most recently. Moreover, in Italy the proportion of higher education grad-
uates among younger generations is the second lowest in Europe (28% for people aged 30 to 34 in 2018,
although this percentage has tripled in 25 years).
Secondly, France and Italy are interesting to compare because of their different urban mesh. Urban
structures can play an important role in the geography of higher education graduates’ downgrading.
In general, very large cities tend to concentrate a significant proportion of managerial positions and
higher-level intellectual professions. This is the case in France, where intellectual, management and de-
cision-making functions converge (Van Puymbroeck, 2010), particularly in Paris and the Île-de-France
region, where more than a third of these jobs are found (Aubry & Léger, 2015). On the other hand, the
urban network in Italy is very different from that of France, which is characterised by a hyper-concentra-
tion of political, economic, cultural and media powers in the Parisian agglomeration and, to a much lesser
extent, in a few regional metropolises (Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Nice)4. In Italy, if two cities dominate the ur-
ban hierarchy (Roma and Milano), there are also several large cities of importance on the European stage
(Firenze, Torino, Napoli, Venezia, Bologna, etc.)5 and more than a hundred cities of between 30,000 and
200,000 inhabitants, often active, well-equipped, and even welcoming for a few higher functions (univer-
sities; major head offices, such as the Benetton headquarters in Treviso) (Delpirou & Rivière, 2013). As a
result, managerial jobs are better distributed in Italy than in France. Finally, in Italy there is no ‘diagonal
of the void’.6 There is, however, a significant north-south division.
Based on this comparative approach, our study investigates the professional downgrading in France
and in Italy, especially with respect to access to managerial positions, (1) exploring territorial disparities
3 The term EU-15 refers to the 15 member states of the European Union before the new member states joined the EU. For these countries,
statistical series are available for the last twenty-five years.
4 The territories mentioned in this article for France are shown on map A1 in Annex 1.
5 The territories mentioned in this article for Italy are shown on map A2 in Annex 2.
6 The ‘diagonal of the void’ (diagonale du vide) is a broad band that crosses metropolitan France from north-east to south-west, within
which population densities are relatively low compared to the rest of France.
2 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.
Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
within and across countries at a small regional level and (2) examining some implications produced by
this phenomenon such as the redistribution of higher education graduates.
The differences between these two countries suggest a priori, on the one hand, that the downgrading
of higher education graduates is less evident in Italy than in France and, on the other hand, that this
expected result, joined to the more balanced urban mesh in Italy, should lead to less marked territorial
disparities in this country compared to France. We will show that this is not the case.
1.1. Theoretical Background: Determinants and Consequences of Professional Downgrading
In Europe two main strands of literature have, over time, investigated the implications produced
by the increase in professional downgrading in general, and by that of higher education graduates in
particular. The first strand highlights the effects shaped by a greater number of highly educated workers
that accentuates the phenomenon of ‘queuing’ within the labour market (Salais, 1980), where candidates
are placed according to their educational qualifications and also according to the theory of competition
for employment (Thurow, 1975). Conforming to this postulate, the growing number of candidates for
managerial positions has increased the ‘queue’ for this type of position. As a result, the lowest ranked
individuals are strongly encouraged to choose between waiting for a job corresponding to their level
of qualification (and in this case remaining unemployed or being inactive) or changing ‘queues’ and
applying for a job where the required qualifications are lower than the education level possessed. In this
case, they displace even further those whose level of qualification corresponds to the jobs of this ‘queue,’
inducing them to confront the same dilemma.
This empirical evidence seems to have dominated mainly in France, where the research conducted
since the second half of the 1990s has focused on the risk factors of downgrading, analysing the so-
cio-demographic characteristics of individuals (the size of the municipality of residence, sex, mode of
residence, father’s profession, etc.) (Nauze-Fichet & Tomasini, 2002), the dimension of the job held
(sector of activity, size of the employer, type of contract) (Giret, Nauze-Fichet & Tomasini, 2006), and
the level of education and/or training (Giret, Lopez, & Rose, 2005). Moreover, detailed studies, such as
those resulting from the use of the generation surveys carried out by the Centre for Studies and Research
on Qualifications (Céreq), have documented the trajectories of individuals with regard to access to jobs
(Nauze-Fichet & Tomasini, 2005).
Another strand of literature reverses this logic related to the professional downgrading pointing to
the shortage of skilled jobs. This is precisely what Italian research does, often focusing on the structural
factors driving over-education that stem from the development of activity sectors requiring less-quali-
fied workers to the detriment of activities in the advanced tertiary sector (Bernardi & Ballarino, 2014).
Some studies have explored the diffusion of the professional downgrading in Italy in the area of public
service during the 1990s (Argentin & Triventi, 2011) when some institutional reforms and the signifi-
cant presence of the baby boomer generation in management positions had further reduced recruitment
opportunities for higher education. The development of the private sector has certainly helped young
Italian graduates to access employment, but most often they occupy intermediate professions (Fullin &
Reynieri, 2015).
Other studies have shown that structural imbalances in the labour market play a greater role in
determining over-education rates than does the education system. In other words, there would not be a
surplus of higher education graduates in Italy, but rather there would be an insufficient number of medium-
or high-skilled jobs (Ballarino & Schizzerotto, 2011; Argentin & Ballarino, 2014). Not surprisingly, the
spatial dimension has also been emphasised in this country given the development gap between the
northern and southern regions. Iammarino and Marinelli (2015, 2017) have investigated interregional
migrations in Italy, examining the relationship between over-education in workers and spatial mobility,
while Meliciani and Radicchia (2016) have measured the effect of migration on the education-to-work
transition. Both of these studies apply econometric models and seek to identify individual characteristics
(sex, type of training, father’s level of education, region of origin, etc.) related to the risk of experiencing
internal migration.
Concerning the geographical implications of the downgrading, few studies have examined this fea-
ture but only through analysis of the individual trajectories and their determinants. Plassard argues that,
‘a part of over-education would result from trade-offs between employment and the advantages of the
place of residence’ (Plassard, 2015, p. 52) and in line with this assertion, scholars have compared levels
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 3
Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
of downgrading of one country with another. For example, empirical evidence has documented an in-
crease in the rates of over-education on the labour market in Portugal, especially between 1985 and 1992,
and in the Netherlands between 1960 and 1995 (Brynin, 2002; Chabault, 2008). Nevertheless, to our
knowledge, the demographic translation of the downgrading on geographic disparities has not yet been
explored at the sub-national level. Several questions regarding over-education remain to be addressed by
an in-depth and systematic spatial analysis.
Indeed, when tensions within the labour market are so strong that they force workers to occupy a job
for which they are overqualified, the issue of residential mobility within a region or a country – but also
externally (migration to a foreign country) – is essential.
Internal and international migration can play an important role in shaping regional differences re-
lated to the phenomenon of downgrading. At the individual level, some studies show that interregional
migrants have lower rates of over-education than local populations (González-Leonardo & Gay, 2019);
conversely, over-education seems to be higher for international immigrants than for the native popula-
tion (Hidalgo, Calderón & Pérez, 2006). On the other hand, a growing stream of research at the national
and regional levels is exploring the impact of internal migration, by level of education attained, on the
redistribution of human capital, focusing on the changes this phenomenon implies in the number and
composition of skills in both the regions of origin and of destination (Faggian, Rajbhandari & Dotzel,
2017; Bonifazi, Heins, & Tucci, 2018). A recent study has shown that in Spain the educational selectivity
of internal migrants has produced different internal migration patterns related to the existing territorial
imbalances of this country. In particular, the growing mismatch between workers’ skills and the labour
market, and strong competition for the few qualified jobs available, has increased migration of graduates
from some inland regions towards more economically developed regions over time, while out-migration
rates of less educated individuals have remained stable (González-Leonardo, et al. 2020).
Conversely, by examining the effects of internal mobility on regional labor markets, some authors
have revealed mixed findings in Italy. For interregional migration flows of low-skilled workers, the spatial
differences in the unemployment rates are reduced. In contrast, south-north flows of high-skilled workers
have had a negative impact, increasing unemployment rate differentials and deepening the disparities
between northern and southern regions and provinces (Basile, Girardi, Mantuano & Russo, 2019). This
article is devoted more precisely to the ‘geographical translation’ in Italy and France of these residential
mobilities which is partly related to the ‘fear of downgrading’ (Eckert, 2014, p. 87) of higher education
graduates.
2. Methodology
To characterise and then measure downgrading, several methods have been used over the past forty
years. The first, the normative approach, consists of establishing a priori a correspondence table between
‘the diplomas which usually match to a profession (entry by profession) or, conversely, the profession or
professions traditionally associated with a level of education (entry by diploma)’ (Forgeot & Gautié, 1997,
p. 55). The second method, the statistical approach, refers to a correspondence table between diploma and
profession based ‘on a criterion of a statistical nature in the sense that it takes account both of the relative
importance of social categories at each level of education, and, symmetrically, of the relative shares of the
various diplomas in each social category (without referring to a specific threshold)’ (Forgeot & Gautié,
1997, p. 56). In this way the norm is statistically defined. Finally, there is a third subjective approach (Di
Paola & Moullet, 2012), which is based on the sense of satisfaction that individuals experience in their
professional positions and social categories related to their level of education.
To perform our spatial analysis in France and in Italy we adopted the normative method, which pro-
poses downgrading measures for a considerable number of diploma levels (Lemistre, 2014). Nevertheless,
since our purpose is to provide a measure of downgrading on a small sub-national scale, we have limited
the number of categories used to characterise diploma level and socio-professional category.
Concerning diplomas, we gathered three categories of workers and brought them together within the
same category: those whose highest diploma is lower than a baccalaureate; those whose highest educa-
tion level is a baccalaureate degree, including general, technological or professional degrees; and, finally,
all active higher education graduates, whatever the number of years of study.
On the employment side, we have differentiated two main categories. The first includes managers and
higher intellectual professionals whose level of skill unequivocally corresponds to higher education; the
4 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.
Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
second includes employees/workers whose required level of skill is still (and in principle) unequivocally
below the baccalaureate.
Even though we are attempting to expand the knowledge of downgrading on a detailed geographic
scale, our study is mainly based on an analysis of the following simple indicators:
-- the proportion of managers among workers with higher education qualifications aged 25 to 54,
which measures the proportion of higher graduates who access a job corresponding to their level
of education/qualification;
-- the proportion of employees/workers among the same active graduates aged 25 to 54, which as-
sesses the proportion of these graduates that unambiguously occupy a downgraded professional
position in relation to their level of education.
We analysed indicators for Italy and France across time and space even though the implementation
of the comparison between these two countries has limitations.
The first one stems from significant differences between professional nomenclatures in the two coun-
tries. Rather than trying to reconstruct categories of professions exactly identical to the ones existing in
France, we have gathered those that are significant with respect to the topic of our analysis in each coun-
try. For executives/managers, we regrouped functions and jobs which ‘normally’ target higher education
graduates.7 For workers/employees, we brought together functions and jobs which, if occupied by tertiary
graduates, would undoubtedly represent a clear professional downgrading.8 In order to clearly differen-
tiate these two social groups (managers on the one hand, and workers/employees on the other), certain
socio-professional categories, which can include significant proportions of higher education graduates,
baccalaureate holders and non-baccalaureate holders, have been excluded from our field of study. These
are mainly intermediate professions (for example, senior technicians, who may hold a short-cycle higher
education qualification, but might also be non-higher education graduates who have benefited from so-
cial promotions), artisans and traders, farmers and the military.
The second limitation concerns the sub-national divisions adopted for France and Italy. For France,
we have focused on the arrondissement, which is a sub-departmental administrative unit (three to four
per department) whose name corresponds to the main city where administrative functions are concen-
trated (sub-prefecture or prefecture when the capital of the arrondissement is also that of the department).
There are around 330 in mainland France. Their number may vary over time depending on local territo-
rial redevelopments, although this is quite rare. Statistically, these districts have the advantage of dividing
France into a sufficiently large number of spatial units to distinguish between the living areas of cities and
large, medium and small towns, with rural towns, while providing large enough numbers of individuals
to produce robust descriptive statistics. In Italy, these administrative units do not exist. However, we can
refer to the provinces (110 provinces in 2011), which have the same advantages as the French districts in
studies that explore spatial disparities.
Finally, the time periods compared are different. While for France it is possible to construct a har-
monised series of professional downgrading indicators since 1968, for Italy this is only possible for the
years 2001 and 2011. Indeed, the available data does not allow us to construct indicators that might in-
tersect the educational level and socio-professional category for the years 1981 and 1991 due to changes
in occupational classifications. Nevertheless, this does not detract from our approach of comparing the
sub-national intensity of downgrading since the beginning of the significant growth in the proportion of
tertiary graduates in the labour force aged 25 to 54. Given the demographic inertia, a time lag is needed
between the moment when the share of higher education graduates within a generation increases and the
moment when this phenomenon materialises within a set of three generations. The earlier emergence of
this phenomenon in France explains why we have gone back to 1982 to draw broad outlines of the initial
situation, whereas starting from 2001 is pertinent for the case of Italy.
Despite the methodological difficulties encountered in ensuring a comparison between France and
Italy, the changes observed over time have allowed us to obtain solid findings.
We used available data from the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) for
France and from National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for Italy concerning people aged 25 to 54. This
7 Professional, intellectual, scientific activities requiring higher skills or artistic activity; management of a company or management of
public or private organisations.
8 These categories concern occupations that involve simple and routine tasks requiring manual labour or service functions or require
skills at the second ISCO skill level (i.e., stationary plant and machine operator assemblers, drivers and mobile plant operators).
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 5
Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
aggregated age category has the advantage of bringing together most of the working population. Its
reduction to three generations also allows us to measure the changes between two generations that com-
pletely differ with respect to the phenomenon of downgrading. Thus, by examining this age group it is
possible to compare workers aged 25 to 54 at the beginning of the 1980s with those of the 2010s, two sets
completely separate from a generational point of view. Indeed, during the 1980s the number of baccalau-
reates, and then the number of students, began to significantly increase in France, producing a significant
change in the composition of the working population. Also, at the beginning of the 1980s, a policy of
decentralisation was implemented in France to rebalance power between the central administrations in
Paris and the territorial administrations in the provinces.
3. Results
3.1. Evolution of educational levels at the national level in Italy and France
Before exploring the territorial differences in professional downgrading in Italy and France, we
present the trend at the national level, examining the same indicators used at the sub-national level. This
framework allows us to better understand this phenomenon at the level of the entire country and, thus,
to better illustrate the geographical disparities.
In France as in Italy, with the growth in the proportion of tertiary graduates in the working population
(Figure 1), the share of these graduates aged 25 to 54 who occupy positions as manual workers or
employees has increased considerably: It has risen from 7% to 21% between 1982 and 2015 in France,
and from 8% to 22% in just 10 years in Italy (from 2001 to 2011). At the same time, the proportion of
the higher education graduates aged 25 to 54 in managerial positions has dropped from 45% to 36% in
France, and from 70% to 55% in Italy. In these two countries, the extent of this decrease is therefore
comparable to the increase in the proportion of downgraded higher education graduates in the labor
market. These two symmetrical trends both highlight the same phenomenon: the growing tension related
to access to jobs corresponding to the highest levels of education and/or qualification.
Figure 1. Evolution in France and Italy of the proportion of higher education graduates
among the active population (employed or not) aged 25 to 54
% of people
45%
40%
Level > Baccalaureate France
35%
Level > Baccalaureate Italy
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
year
0%
1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012
Source: Insee, French Population Census; Istat, Italian Population Census. Own elaboration
The entry into the labor market of ever more qualified generations, and the departure of older ones
possessing lower education levels logically leads to an increase in the proportion of workers (employed
or not) who have earned a tertiary level degree. Thus, in France, between 1982 and 2015, the share of
workers aged 25 to 54 with a higher level of education more than tripled, from 13% to 41% (Figure 1).
But at the same time, the number of working people in this age group occupying managerial positions
has only increased by a factor of x2.4. Among higher education graduates, competition for access to
managerial jobs has therefore intensified considerably: In 1982 there were 2.1 million higher education
graduates among workers aged 25 to 54 and 1.6 million managers in this age group, a ratio of 13 higher
6 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.
Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
education graduates for every 10 executives. In 2015, this ratio rose with 9.1 million higher education
graduates for every 3.9 million executives. In Italy, where the share of workers aged 25 to 54 with a higher
education level only doubled between 1981 and 2011 – from 9% to 19% (Figure 1) – the ratio between
the number of managerial jobs and the number of higher education graduates was much more favorable
than in France. In 2011, there were 3.3 million managers among workers aged 25 to 54 for 3.9 million
higher education graduates in Italy, a ratio of 12 higher education graduates for every 10 executives.
Nevertheless, in Italy the decrease in the number of managerial jobs between 2001 and 2011, which
was also exacerbated by the crisis of 2008 that hit Italy particularly hard, combined with the increasing
flow of higher education graduates, probably explains the surge in downgrading for this category of
workers. Indeed, the number of executives aged 25 to 54 lost 250,000 units in ten years, while the num-
ber of graduates gained one million.
To sum up, in France, the increase in the share of higher education graduates within each generation
has led to a rise in the proportion of active people with a tertiary education level. This trend has contributed
to the downgrading of all those who do not attain higher education: In 1982, 41% of managers did not
have tertiary level qualifications; in 2015, that percentage is only 15%. While it was possible even thirty
years ago to access managerial positions without a tertiary level diploma, this is not true today. In 2015,
only higher education graduates can hope to access professional functions.
However, the increase in the number of tertiary graduates has been greater than the increase in
the number of jobs for which such qualifications are required; consequently, their chances of becoming
managers have decreased quite markedly. As a result, a significant proportion (one in five) of workers
who have obtained a tertiary level diploma are employed as manual workers or employees. In other
words, the increase in the number of higher education graduates has reduced their access to managerial
functions and, therefore, effectively blocks entirely any possibility of becoming a manager for a person
who chooses not to pursue higher studies. Briefly, the increasing and respectable ambition to pursue
higher education has translated into a strengthening of inequalities in access to managerial functions and
a weakening of the conversion of university qualifications in the job market.
This pattern is completely comparable in Italy. Managerial positions are becoming increasingly re-
served for higher education graduates: In 2011, 66% of executives were tertiary-level graduates, com-
pared to just half (49%) ten years earlier. This reality has also intensified competition for these types of
jobs among higher education graduates which, with the consequent drop in the proportion of managers
among tertiary graduates, has increased professional downgrading.
The situation has become critical over time: Maestripieri and Ranci (2016) write that Italy, “Is not a
country for graduates”. Furthermore, it is not impossible that the figures on downgrading underestimate
the reality. Indeed, especially since the crisis of the late 2000s, emigration from Italy has increased sig-
nificantly, and higher education graduates have represented an important percentage of these outflows
(Bonifazi & Heins, 2019; De Rosa & Strozza, 2015; Dubucs, Pfirsch, Recchi & Schmoll, 2017). In general,
this skilled migration has reduced the demographic pressure on managerial jobs in Italy. Nonetheless, the
Italian job market only partially succeeds in offering suitable positions to the many tertiary-level gradu-
ates. Consequently, these individuals are often forced to choose to either accept a downgraded job in their
own country or to expatriate.
These departures have consequences for the statistics: If in Italy the migration of higher education
graduates due to a lack of professional positions corresponding to their qualifications were not a reality,
the proportion of managers among higher education graduates would be lower, while the proportion of
intermediate occupations and workers/employees would be higher.
Therefore, the migration of graduates mitigates, in a way, these findings. Nonetheless, the figures pre-
sented lead unambiguously to the fact that Italy is currently experiencing difficulty in ensuring the con-
version of tertiary-level diplomas in the labor market, despite the fact that less than 30% of the younger
generations reach this education level9.
9 This proportion likely underestimates the real share of tertiary graduates within a generation. Eurostat statistics for each country only
relate to the resident population within each of them. And if, as we have mentioned, the rate of emigration of graduates is significant,
these departures of higher education graduates lead to an underestimation of the growth in the number – and probably the share – of
higher education graduates among 30 to 34 years old. If, in Italy, this statistic lags behind those of all the other European countries, it
is perhaps also because some of its graduates, or even most of its graduates (engineers, researchers, doctors, architects, etc.) no longer
reside there.
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 7
Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
However, in France and Italy, depending on the territory, this difficulty in ensuring a suitable conver-
sion of university degrees in the labor market can be quite unequal. Statistics show significant disparities
between those territories integrated into the globalization process (the big cities in France, the northern
regions in Italy) and the rest of the country. This is precisely what the sub-national spatial analysis shows
in this paper.
3.2. Slight territorial disparities in Italy as in France with a downgrading rate below 10%.
In the early 1980s when only 7% of higher education graduates aged 25-54 were employed as manual
workers, France was a homogeneous country with regard to the local capacity for higher education grad-
uates to reap the rewards of their educational capital in the job market. In 7 out of 10 arrondissements,
more than 35% of higher education graduates were able to access managerial jobs (Figure 2). If, at the
beginning of the 1980s, access to managerial positions was certainly not equal everywhere – with the
Paris region and, to a lesser extent, regional capitals already being an obligatory passage for many higher
education graduates – the possibility of making use of a tertiary-level education presented only moderate
disparities according to territory. Only in rural districts, such as those of the Massif Central (a mid-moun-
tain area which is quite isolated), were the professional opportunities scarce for working people with
higher education qualifications. In all parts of France, the risks of a professional having to downgrade (as
a manual worker or over-qualified employee) were low.
With the exception of 27 arrondissements (more or less) throughout France, in Paris as well as in the
arrondissements of small and medium-sized towns, and even in the rural arrondissements, the propor-
tion of higher education graduates occupying worker/employee positions did not exceed 10% (Figure 3).
Figure 2. Proportion (%) of executives among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 1982
Source : Insee, 1982 French Population Census. Own elaboration
8 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.
Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
Figure 3. Proportion (%) of manual workers among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 1982
Source: 1982 French Population Census. Own elaboration
The same observation could be made in Italy in 2001, when only 8% of higher education graduates
were manual workers or employees. Undoubtedly, at the beginning of the 2000s in northern Italy, which
is the most productive area of the country, the proportion of managers among tertiary graduates was the
highest on average. In all the regions of the North (Piemonte, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia,
Veneto, Lombardia, Toscana and Liguria) with the exception of Valle d’Aosta, this proportion was higher
than or equal to the national average (70%).
However, between the north and the south of the country, on a regional scale, the differences remain
relatively small (from 73% in Piemonte to 63% in Basilicata), as well as at the provincial level (Figure 4).
In the northern regions, not all the provinces have a higher proportion of managers among tertiary-level
graduates than the national average. Nevertheless, the differences are limited except in very rare cases,
such as in Piemonte (76% of managers with tertiary degrees), where the province of Torino, which holds
more than half the managers in the region, weighs considerably in the regional average. The difference
in the extreme regional values related to the proportion of manual workers or employees among higher
education graduates was also small (from 5% in Campania to 10% in Valle d’Aosta). This is also the case
at the provincial level (from 3% in the province of Caserta, in Campania, to 11% in Savona, in Liguria).
Nevertheless, the spatialization of this indicator reveals the first surprise: In the southernmost regions of the
country the values are lowest (Figure 5). In other words, while in the southernmost part of the Mezzogiorno10
higher education graduates have the least chance of working in a profession corresponding to their level
of education, nevertheless, they also represent the smallest proportion to occupy clearly downgraded
professional functions. In Campania, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia and Sardegna, this proportion is lower than
the national average (7%). In the northern regions, a similar situation can be observed only in Piemonte.
10 These are the peninsular and island regions of southern Italy.
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 9
Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
Figure 4. Proportion (%) of executives among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2001
Source : Istat, 2001 Italian Population Census. Own elaboration
Figure 5. Proportion (%) of manual workers among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2001
Source : Istat, 2001 Italian Population Census. Own elaboration
10 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
These results, and the maps for Italy, cannot be properly apprehended without considering internal
migration, the dominant historical movement of populations along the axis of south to north. Houdai-
lle had already echoed it in 1970, insisting that, “these migrations do not depend solely on economic
factors”, but that, “to reverse this trend it is quite a state of mind that would have to be transformed”
(Houdaille, 1970, p. 1091). Recent studies confirm that this movement of individuals in Italy involves not
only workers but also more qualified young people (Basile et al., 2019). Furthermore, while the reasons
for migration to the north of the country cannot be reduced solely to the economic aspect, it remains an
important explanatory factor. In fact, since the early 1970s the value of gross domestic product (GDP)
per capita in purchasing power parity in the south of Italy corresponded to only 70% of that of the central
and northern regions (Bonifazi, 2015). Pugliese (2015) also indicates that, at least for current internal
migrants from the regions of southern Italy, the conditions of departure are not much different from those
experienced by the earlier wave of workers who left with their ‘cardboard suitcases’. Today, “many uni-
versity graduates leave their regions with the equivalent of the cardboard suitcase, that is to say with little
hope, little security and very low chances of finding a stable job suited to the university title possessed”
(Pugliese, 2015, p. 34). The statistical translation of these migratory movements on the map shows that
in 2001, in Northern Italy, the proportion of higher education graduates who held managerial jobs was
greater than in Southern Italy. On the other hand, in the southernmost regions the share of higher educa-
tion graduates occupying manual worker/employee positions is the lowest.
Internal migration explains this apparent paradox. Higher education graduates from the southern
regions have the opportunity to try their luck in the northern regions, which consequently reduces the
proportion of higher education graduates in the South occupying downgraded professional functions.
But these same graduates do not necessarily manage to find professional positions corresponding to
their educational qualifications in the wealthier regions of the North, where the opportunities are
more numerous but the proportion of graduates who occupy a position corresponding to their level
of tertiary education is also greater. They therefore exert additional demographic pressure for the
most qualified jobs, which in the receiving regions tends to increase the proportion of downgraded
managers and also to decrease the proportion of managers among higher education graduates in these
same regions. In 2001, however, this did not prevent the northern regions from presenting higher
management rates among tertiary graduates than those in the South which, given the effect of internal
migration on the value of this indicator, reveals how much more plentiful professional opportunities
were in the north.
3.3. Strong territorial inequalities in France (2015) and Italy (2011) with a downgrading
rate above 20%
In France, “activities implying strong economic development potential and high decision-making
content” are concentrated in Paris and in a small number of very large cities, and, “in these activi-
ties, the jobs are occupied mainly by managers” (Brutel, 2011, p. 2). Thus, at the start of the 2010s,
36% of executives resided in Île-de-France, one-third of which were in intramural Paris, and 20% of
them were concentrated in the districts of the main provincial cities (Aix-en-Provence-Marseille, Lyon,
Toulouse, Nice, Lille, Nantes, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, and Grenoble). In 2010, 56% of the
managerial positions in France were concentrated in the 25 arrondissements of Île-de-France and the
12 arrondissements covering the 10 main regional large cities (i.e. in just 37 of the 330 districts in
mainland France). This order of magnitude remained the same in 2015. In Paris, nearly one in two
workers aged 25-54 (45%) is a manager, and this proportion is higher than 25% in eight other Parisian
arrondissements. In the provinces, only the arrondissement of Toulouse reaches this value. In the dis-
tricts corresponding to the other large provincial metropolises, the proportion of executives among the
working population aged 25-54 is only about 20%. Elsewhere in the province, this proportion can fall
significantly below 10%. Therefore, it is in Paris and in the main regional cities that higher education
graduates are most likely to find a job corresponding to their level of qualification. This is why they
choose to live there.
Generally, in the employment areas of these cities the proportion of executives among higher edu-
cation graduates reaches its highest values (Figure 6), and it is also in these areas that the risks of pro-
fessional downgrading are the lowest (Figure 7). Not surprisingly, in the Paris region the proportion of
executives among working people with higher education qualifications is highest. In 2015, it also reached
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 11Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
or even exceeded 60% in the arrondissements of Paris and Boulogne-sur-Seine (a district contiguous to
the one containing Paris). Moreover, it is only in the arrondissements of the Paris region that more than
half of higher education graduates hold managerial positions. In the provinces, the maximum values
are found in the large cities (Lyon, Toulouse, Grenoble, Strasbourg, etc.), where they exceed 40%; this
is twice the proportion in some arrondissements in Central and Northeastern France. This mapping
of the percentage of executives among higher education graduates reflects, almost symmetrically, the
proportion of downgraded higher education graduates. Except in the large metropolitan areas where
this proportion is less than 10%, it reaches or exceeds 20% in 299 of the 330 arrondissements in France.
Professional downgrading is therefore experienced by at least 20% of higher education graduates practi-
cally everywhere in France, except in very large cities. This is an unprecedented partition of space that
contrasts sharply with that which was observed thirty years earlier (Figures 6 and 7).
In thirty years, considerable spatial inequalities have therefore emerged between Paris and the major
regional metropolises, as well as the rest of France. Certainly, here and there, some territories still man-
aged to perform well, but these exceptions do not mitigate a particularly marked territorial split. And
it is important to note that these territorial disparities, paradoxically, have widened since 1982 when
administrative reorganization (geographical displacement of the decision-making power of Paris towards
the territories) began to accelerate. The main beneficiaries of this policy are the large regional capitals.
Conversely, within regions this has manifestly occurred to the detriment of rural livelihoods and of small
and medium-sized towns.
Figure 6. Proportion (%) of executives among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2015
Source : Insee, 2015 French Population Census. Own elaboration
12 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
Figure 7. Proportion (%) of manual workers among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2015
Source: 2015 French Population Census. Own elaboration
Managerial jobs are also unevenly distributed in Italy. In particular, in most parts of the South, they
are scarce in number. In 2011, there were fewer managers aged 25-54 in the group of regions including
Sicily (6.8% of the 3.3 million executives aged 25-54), Calabria (2.8%), Puglia (5.5%), Basilicata (0.9%),
Molise (0.5%) and Abruzzo (2.2%) than in the region of Lombardia (18.9%). These results are compara-
ble to those for 2001. Within the regions, the province corresponding to the main city also concentrates
a significant proportion of this type of employment. Thus: in Lombardia, the province of Milano con-
centrates 39% of the executives of this region (48% if we add the provinces of Monza and Brianza, which
until 2004 was part of the province of Milano); in Lazio, 80% of managers aged 25-54 live in the province
of Roma; in Piemonte and Campania, the provinces of Torino and Napoli also have more than half of the
regional workforce in this category of workers. However, unlike in France, management jobs are much
more evenly distributed among the territories. In France, in 2010, the districts of the 11 main metropo-
lises brought together 56% of managers aged 25-54. In Italy, in 2011, the 11 provinces which hosted the
most managers (Roma, Milano, Napoli, Torino, Bologna, Bari, Brescia, Firenze, Padua, Bergamo, Monza
and Brianza) only concentrated 37% of this category of active workers. Gini coefficients summarize these
very unequal territorial concentrations from one country to another (0.67 for France and 0.47 for Italy).
But what this indicator does not reveal is the north-south division of the country. On the other hand, the
increase in the downgrading rate and, at the same time, the reduction in the proportion of executives
among working people with higher education qualifications highlight it clearly.
At the sub-national level, while the proportion of managers among working people aged 25-54 was
greater than 60% everywhere in Italy in 2001, ten years later no regions present such data. In 2011, in
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 13Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
only one province (Bolzano, in Trentino Alto Adige) does this proportion still exceed 60%, in contrast
with 2001, when all the provinces were in this situation.
But above all, in 2011 the regions and provinces of the South had managerial ratios for higher educa-
tion graduates among the highest in the country (Figure 8). For example, in 2011 Puglia was at the same
level as Piemonte (55%), while ten years earlier 7 percentage points separated these two regions (66%
and 73% respectively). The same observation can be made at the provincial level: Whereas in Torino the
proportion of executives among higher education graduates has dropped 20 points (from 76% in 2001
to 56% in 2011), in the province of Bari the decrease was more measured (from 67% to 56%). It should
be remembered that this statistical catching up took place while the GDP gap in purchasing power parity
between the northern and southern regions remained remarkably constant over the entire period (Svimez,
2013). Therefore, a relative improvement in the conversion of higher education diplomas on the labor
market in the southern regions cannot explain this statistical reversal. Rather, it is a combination of three
factors: an increase in the number of higher education graduates in the labor market, the likely increase
in migratory flows of young graduates from the South to the North, and a contraction of managerial jobs
in the provinces of the northern regions. For example, in 2011 in Lombardia and Piemonte, there were
fewer executives aged 25-54 than in 2001 (the 10-year deficits were 10,000 and 40,000, respectively).
The northern provinces were therefore no longer able, at least in 2011, to absorb the growing number of
higher education graduates, both those trained locally and those arriving from the southern provinces.
The very marked deflation of the proportion of executives among tertiary graduates in the northern re-
gions, and their lower values than those of the southern regions, reflects a particularly high strain on the
Italian labor market.
Figure 8. Proportion (%) of executives among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2011
Source : Istat, 2011 Italian Population Census. Own elaboration
Migration tends to select those populations to remain in the South that manage to integrate well
into the labor market. Therefore, the existence of this demographic bias in the interpretation of the
data also explains why the proportion of downgraded tertiary-level graduates is lowest in the southern
regions and provinces (Figure 9). It is, on average, less than 16% in Basilicata, Puglia and Calabria,
while it reaches 20% in Lombardia and Piemonte (two regions that welcome a “surplus” of graduates
14 Investigaciones Geográficas, in press.Downgrading among higher education graduates in Italy and France: exploring regional differences
into a harsh local context). Within the regions, the values of this indicator are very homogeneous. The
spatial disparities, therefore, primarily follow a north-south axis, but we do not note (as is the case in
France) any significant sub-regional distinctions. In the North, the density of the urban network and the
communication infrastructure between different towns within the same region promote commuting and,
therefore, probably attenuate interprovincial differences.
Figure 9. Proportion (%) of manual workers among tertiary graduates aged 25-54 in 2011
Source : Istat, 2011 Italian Population Census. Own elaboration
4. Discussion and conclusions: Can the geographic concentration of skilled jobs
be considered a model that is running out of steam?
The faster growth in the number of tertiary graduates than that of the jobs requiring this level of edu-
cation is now reflected in a decrease of the proportion of active higher education graduates who are able
to convert their qualifications on the labor market. In turn, the rate of professional downgrading has in-
creased: In Italy as in France, the proportion of workers aged 25-54 who are engaged as manual workers
or employees is now over 20%. The analysis of this phenomenon on a sub-national scale enhances this
evidence. Our findings show that the rate of professional downgrading of highly educated workers has
become very unequal depending on the region. The territories best integrated into the global economic
context (the northern provinces in Italy; Paris and the large regional cities in France) are those with the
greatest supply of highly skilled jobs and, consequently, offer higher education graduates a better chance
of finding a job that corresponds to their level of qualification.
In both France and Italy, pursuing higher education often leads to geographic mobility. While a di-
ploma can protect against unemployment, it does not guarantee a professional position that corresponds
to the degree earned, nor does it necessarily allow the individual to reside where they would like. The
ambition to be a member of management, therefore, can have a significant residential cost. For an Italian
from the Mezzogiorno, it means going to live in the north of the country where the cost of living is higher
and the opportunities are scarcer. It also often means accepting precarious living conditions – especially
in terms of housing – when employment does not precede mobility. This is potentially even more true for
those who relocate to other countries where they are more likely to find a job and/or salary corresponding
to the expectations raised by the studies they pursued.
Investigaciones Geográficas, in press. 15Carella, M. and Léger, J.-F.
This migratory response of active higher education graduates to territorial inequalities in Italy is al-
ready reaching its limits, as evidenced by the values of the provincial downgrading rates. In 2011, they
were higher in the provinces of the North than in the South. This means that the northern provinces no
longer have the capability of absorbing the ever-increasing number of workers in this category as they
did in the early 2000s. In France, the downgrading rates of metropolitan areas, primarily Paris, are still
significantly lower than those of other territories. The country’s largest cities, therefore, seem to be able
to accommodate working people with higher education qualifications. But for how much longer?
In France, the salaries of executives are certainly much higher on average than those of other social
categories. But what about purchasing power when you have to find accommodation in a city where the
selling price of housing exceeds 10,000 euros per square meter, as in Paris, or reaches 4,000 euros per
square meter, as in Lyon, Bordeaux and a few other big cities? And what about the quality of life? Long be-
fore Covid-19 (which has only exacerbated this trend), in recent years, all the surveys carried out in France
among executives/managers reveal a weariness for life in the large urban centres. The latest survey, which
was carried out by Cadremploi in August of 2019 – a major recruitment site for executives – indicates that
8 out of 10 Parisian executives would be ready to leave Paris for an average-sized city. The stress of living
in the capital, the cost of living, travel times, pollution, and very high rents are among the factors most
often mentioned to explain the desire to live elsewhere. And even if these intentions will most often not
be carried out, emerging phenomena are pointing in the same direction. There are more and more reports
regarding early retraining of executives in the crafts, in education, or in other sectors that allow people to
live someplace other than in the centres of the largest cities in France. It is no longer rare to hear students
who have just finished their master’s degrees talk about their desire to work in another profession, and
very often a manual one. According to a survey carried out in France in 2015 by the Association for the
Employment and Promotion of Executives (APEC) among 4,674 young graduates with a bac +5 level, 14%
of them, “declared having experienced a professional change”, and as the authors of this report point out,
this reorientation may be, “an option imposed by a lack of opportunities and an unsuccessful job search”
(APEC, 2015). The decrease in the proportion of higher education graduates holding managerial jobs in
France and Italy would, therefore, be the result of increased tensions in the managerial market.
Pursuing a higher education level and accessing dominant professional positions (executives) is still
widely considered to be the best way to enhance and control one’s life course. Nevertheless, our results
show that strong residential constraints weigh on workers with higher education qualifications due to the
geographic concentration of these jobs, in Italy as well as in France. In addition, the very early reorienta-
tion of young graduates, “is also - unlike the initial orientation, marked by the weight of family influences
- the opportunity to be an actor of his own destiny and to exercise a real personal choice” (APEC, 2015,
p. 3). Therefore, to some of these people, the decrease in the proportion of executives among graduates of
higher education could also be due to a generational shift in attitude. Younger generations may be more
likely than their elders to distance themselves from the social pressure to pursue higher education and
attempt to access the same social category as those who participated in their training (i.e. managers and
those in so-called higher ‘intellectual’ professions).
So far, graduates of higher education have agreed to follow the jobs (« people follow jobs »). But the
residential cost has become less and less profitable, with access to employment becoming increasingly
difficult and the cost of living rising precisely where these jobs are concentrated. The health crisis linked
to the SARS-Covid-19 epidemic, which particularly affected the northern provinces in Italy and large
metropolitan areas in France, was also an opportunity to question this model. The development of
teleworking in response to this health crisis has enabled a number of workers to move their work to the
places where they reside. Granted, there is still a long way to go before jobs follow people (« jobs follow
people »), but it is clear that at least part of the population seems ripe for a new settlement dynamic.
Funding
The project is funded by French and Italian Ministry of University and Research. 2019 Program
Galileo N. G19-62 et N. 42057WJ (“Metropolisation in the Euro-Mediterranean region: an urbanisation
model in crisis?”. Project Coordinators: Gil Bellis and Maria Carella).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and sugges-
tions which led to an improved manuscript.
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